Honestly I have always loved The Rolling Stones. But, for so many years they have just been blasé to me. This album has renewed all things Stones to me and is a wonderful album. One of there best, their best live album period...
I'm with you 100%. I think I've gotten all I can get out of this thread. This release is a keeper and the best thing they've released in a long time. Stones fans have been waiting decades for this and it was totally worth the wait. It's one of the few times a release has lived up to its expectations. Time to "unwatch thread".
Jagger seems to have been prescient about the critics. He keeps referring to them throughout the performance. Are the critics okay? Can they hear all right? Did they have enough to drink? If he was doing modern overdubs he could have added one more.. How's the DR's?
Currently listening to "Hot Stuff" on the second disc. Man, oh man, Ollie and Charlie AND Bill interlock into a groove that is delicious and insatiable! I've always loved this song for its "jammy" style and also along with Billy Preston tinkling the ivories for good measure, not to mention Keef and Ronnie's interlocking with the fantastic rhythm section heard here, it's "Hot Stuff" indeed! "StarF****R " is cued up now. Diggin the groove, with some excellent organ swirls and slides from Billy as well. Love Mick's mention of Jimmy Page on the last verse, hilarious! A pretty easy, groovin version of "Let's Spend the Night Together", despite preferring the '81 versions with a more of a urgency from Keef on vocals and guitar, it's a pleasing, dusted off nugget from yesteryear. Worried Life Blues- Love this laid back, blues groove, originally written and recorded by Big Maceo Merriweather. Ronnie does some fine slide and the band just blends together quite nicely here. Obviously a different night from the original "Love You Live" release, the loose and intimate club feel permeates and is downright charming and love the piano. Not sure if it's Stu or Billy, but it's the cherry on top of Keef and Ronnie's guitar weaving. Brian is smiling down on this particular moment.
Were the four tracks on "Love You Live" taken from the first night? I've not heard the whole 2nd show (still waiting on vinyl delivery) but noticed "Little Red Rooster" was a different (and better IMO) performance from LYL.
It's a good record and it sounds great. For me, it's lacking a bit of the energy I love from their 69-72 shows. In its place is a relaxed, bluesy groove that's also cool, even if its less my speed when it comes to the Stones. I'm also a big Mick Taylor fan, so his absence looms large for me. Hard for me to fairly judge Ronnie, I admit. Regardless, the laid back feel of this performance gave zero indication of what was to come on Some Girls, a record that brought that dangerous energy back for one last ride. Great release. Now do Philadelphia '72, please.
Pictures like that really show nothing - you've squashed the image to a certain size, you have to to fit in on a page. You have also stumbled into one of the great issues of the whole debate, you're claiming it isn't compressed, when of course it is. Most masterings involve some form of compression. I presume you mean it isn't brick-walled
Well, it terms of loudness this new version (I checked Mannish Boy) sits somewhere between Virgin 1998 and Polydor 2009. In terms of DR it is closer to Virgin. For Mannish Boy Virgin DR9, new version DR8, Polydor DR6. In any case, these values are far from CBS DR13 and flat transfer 2011 DR13. Also, new version has a boost in frequency range above 10kHz that is absent for all previous editions (CBS, Virgin, Polydor and flat transfer 2011). That is apart of reverb, which is another issue.
I was talking about Japanese only edition 2xSHM-CD platinum 'Love You Live' [UICY-40032-3] from 2013. It is based on (downsampled from) DSD flat transfer from original UK analogue master tapes by Mick McKenna and Richard Whittaker at FX Copyroom, London 2011.
Thanks What a horrible idea, mix tapes are always expected to be mastered, although I'd be interested to hear them from a see what was done sort of view.
I've been doing some comparisons between the new release, Love You Live and bootlegs. Here are my findings on overdubs for some of the songs (there may be others that I haven't studied fully yet): Spoiler Mannish Boy It's well known that the harmonica part is an overdub (Mick plays whilst he is also singing). It's mixed a bit differently on the new release. I've always heard a faint clavinet-type sound in the bass department, and the new release seems to reveal it is a clavinet. I think Billy plays piano on this, but maybe he's playing clavinet with his left hand and piano with his right (rather than an overdub - pictures show Billy had other keyboards set up on top of the piano). The shouts during the choruses have always sounded overdubbed on LYL to me, and the 2022 mix does away with them completely. Crackin' Up As discussed earlier, this song has evidence of two Mick vocals on LYL. I'm assuming they tried to hide the original vocal but couldn't get rid of leakage into other mics. The echo effect on the new release doesn't make it sound quite as obvious though. Also overdubbed was a new lead part by Ronnie for the first half of the song. This is on top of his original part, which was a rhythm part for the first half (on LYL you can hear both of Ronnie's parts at the start in the left channel). This is all evident by listening to the bootleg rough mix. More unfortunate is that the track was quite extensively edited for LYL and remains so on the new release. Crazy Mama Only a portion of this was bootlegged, but thankfully it goes up to the guitar solo, so we can compare. The new release has Keith (right), Mick's electric rhythm (centre) and Ronnie (left, playing unobtrusively until the solo), plus what must be another overdubbed lead part panned centre during the solo (kind of a harmony part to Ronnie's solo). The bootleg is the same, confirming that the overdub is from 1977. The same thing happens during the second solo on the new release (the boot cuts off early). Hand Of Fate A strange one... Ronnie's part on the left is mainly just a rhythm part that is very similar to Keith's (open G) part on the right. But when it gets to the solo, Ronnie's lead moves to the centre (I don't hear anything in the left channel at this point). During the solo near the end of the song, Ronnie's lead is again in the centre, but the rhythm part on the left continues. So something must be an overdub. My guess is that the ending solo is an overdub, and the first (live) solo was panned to the same position for consistency. Or (less likely) it's Keith left (overdub) and right (live) and Ronnie centre. The bootleg has the same parts but different panning. Worried Life Blues As discussed earlier, this track (never bootlegged) has a slide guitar panned centre on the intro and first solo, after which it disappears. Otherwise this has Ronnie left/Keith right (as usual). Presumably, this was also done in 1977. Luxury This one has what sounds like the same effect on the vocal as Crackin' Up, i.e. a 'doubling' effect, which I notice on the first line and in a few other places. But I'm really not sure. The echo effect on the 2022 mix makes it hard to be certain, plus Mick's vocal is still rough in places and includes instructions to the band ('Play something'. 'Take it home'), so it might just be an audio illusion.
I love the one aside where he kinda goes "Awww," like they're little babies and he feels sorry for them. So funny.
Don't ask me to name the exact dates, because I really can't remember, but Mick did the "all you women is low down hustlers" line a couple of times on the European tour in 1976. Also the "everybody likes to party down sometimes" line and "sweet and dandy" (Toots Hibbert quote) was there in '76 as well. His vocals on "Tumbling Dice" are very much in the vein with how it was sung in 1976. If anything, the version on "Love You Live" sounds weird to me, because of Keith's overdubbed vocals -- I don't recall him singing much at all on that song in 1975, 1976, 1977.
And Wyman is mentioned on the first page of the booklet. Wish they included a photo. Wyman is a unique bassist and brought so much to the Stones’ sound.
The guitar break on Let’s Spend The Night Together is very much like the weaving guitars found on many songs on Some Girls. Maybe they were in already in that mindset.
I would be curious to hear what other work Clearmountain has done since the 1980s. I know he was a big 80s guy with the Bryan Adams albums. What other work has he done since the big reverb sound has fallen out of favor?
They were definitely gearing up for the "Some Girls" era in '77. The funk of "Black & Blue" and irreverent attitude (Mick especially) is a foreshadow of the punky groove soon to come. They weren't the earnest rock/epic style from '72/'73 anymore. You can even trace in back to the '75/'76 era - but at El Mocambo they are loose and ready for the next step.
On Crazy Mama, it's occurred to me that the harmony part playing along with Ronnie's lead riff may be Billy Preston. Billy played some keyboard parts on Goat's Head Soup that sound almost guitar like.
I love this release for what it is, an almost complete show from a legendary 2 night gig. The sound is great bit the mix on side 3 of Love You Live is better. It’s more raw in your face soundboard quality as a small club gig should sound. The cutting of the band intros is also very lame!!
